Thursday, January 14, 2016

Good news from Louisiana

This is long expected, but it is good news all the same. Louisiana's new Governor, John Bel Edwards (D) just made it official: the state is expanding Medicaid. Edwards estimates that the expansion will get 300,000 uninsured residents coverage.

One of the biggest immediate bureaucratic hurdles left is the result of former governor Bobby Jindal (R) gutting staffing in the state health department, but the incoming director thinks she has found a way to hire the 200 + staffers needed to help process new Medicaid applications.

There may be a few other hiccups, but most of the pieces are in place: this is now primarily an administrative task, not a legislative one.